TROY, Mo.--Republican lawmakers have largely come to the defense of former President Donald Trump in the days since Trump announced his indictment on charges related to the mishandling of classified documents.
Trump is accused of keeping documents related to “nuclear weaponry in the United States” and the “nuclear capabilities of a foreign country,” along with documents from White House intelligence briefings, including some that detail the military capabilities of the U.S. and other countries, according to the indictment.
Prosecutors alleged Trump showed off the documents to people who did not have security clearances to review them and later tried to conceal documents from his own lawyers as they sought to comply with federal demands to find and return documents.
Republicans representing the St. Louis area in Congress in the House and Senate, as well as statewide officials, released statements condemning the indictment before it was unsealed.
Spectrum News asked Senator Schmitt’s office if it planned to provide a new statement after the indictment was unsealed and was told it was holding off. Schmitt’s political operation, however, sent a handful of fundraising appeals.
The Governor’s office said Friday a follow up statement was unlikely.
Sunday night, Parson was one of a handful of speakers at the Lincoln County Republican Party’s Lincoln-Reagan-Trump Day, a gathering of locals at the county fairgrounds. The audience heard from elected officials and candidates, while dining on hot dogs and ice cream. While Trump’s name was part of the event, and there was some Trump-themed merchandise as part of a silent auction, his name was hardly spoken.
That is, until Parson took the stage.
“What is happening in the United States of America today is a travesty. When the president of the United States and I’m talking about President Trump, has been treated the way he has been treated, has been targeted the way he has been targeted, whether you like him or whether you don’t, the point of it is you can’t treat people like that in this country. We’re supposed to all be treated equal, not be targeted, and that’s exactly what that guy has been through time and time and time again,” Parson said to applause.
After his remarks, Spectrum News asked the Governor if he’d read the indictment. He said he had not.
“I don’t know what all’s in the indictment. If it’s wrong things in there they’re wrong that’s the way it is. But you see what’s happening and everybody sees it in this country right now. You have two-tiered justice system I don’t think there’s any question about that,” he said. ”But if you’re gonna file charges and say President Trump had classified documents, so did Vice President Pence. So did Biden, and let’s be honest with it. What’s happened to those two?”
The Trump case vs. Biden and Pence
According to the Presidential Records Act, White House documents are considered property of the U.S. government and must be preserved.
A Trump representative told the National Archives in December 2021 that presidential records had been found at Mar-a-Lago. In January 2022, the National Archives retrieved 15 boxes of documents from Trump’s Florida home, later telling Justice Department officials that they contained “a lot” of classified material.
That May, the FBI and Justice Department issued a subpoena for remaining classified documents in Trump’s possession. Investigators who went to visit the property weeks later to collect the records were given roughly three dozen documents and a sworn statement from Trump’s lawyers attesting that the requested information had been returned.
But that assertion turned out to be false. With a search warrant, federal officials returned to Mar-a-Lago in August 2022 and seized more than 33 boxes and containers totaling 11,000 documents from a storage room and an office, including 100 classified documents.
In all, roughly 300 documents with classification markings — including some at the top secret level — have been recovered from Trump since he left office in January 2021.
After classified documents were found at Biden's think tank and Pence's Indiana home, their lawyers notified authorities and arranged for them to be handed over. They also authorized other searches by federal authorities to search for additional documents.
There is no indication either was aware of the existence of the records before they were found, and no evidence has so far emerged that Biden or Pence sought to conceal the discoveries. That’s important because the Justice Department historically looks for willfulness in deciding whether to bring criminal charges.
A special counsel was appointed earlier this year to probe how classified materials ended up at Biden’s Delaware home and former office. But even if the Justice Department were to find Biden’s case prosecutable on the evidence, its Office of Legal Counsel has concluded that a president is immune from prosecution during his time in office.
That has been the opinion of the Justice Department since 1973, which was reinforced in 2000.
As for Pence, the Justice Department informed his legal team earlier this month that it would not be pursuing criminal charges against him over his handling of the documents.